Coping Mechanisms
by arianna99
Summary: Set during Jack's death at the end of 1x13, and about how they dealt with it. J/I


Nope, still belongs to RTD and the BBC

Coping Mechanisms

The worst time working at Torchwood was the four days during which Jack was dead. Sure, there were other times that came close- _losing lovers, being unable to do anything, guilt, Jack leaving them- _but that was without question the worst. Because after all was said and done, and no matter how miserable a human being he could be at times, Jack was their leader. Torchwood three orbited around Jack like the earth round the sun, he was guide, mentor, father, brother, lover and any number of things in between.

Gwen worked around it by disbelief. She was screaming over his corpse when they found her and she didn't stop until Ianto, of all people, turned around to face her and said, "That won't help," in the tersest, most professional voice he had ever used. Just in that moment, she hated him.

She wouldn't leave the corpse, wouldn't let him go, refused to even see the possibility of him not coming back. They all believed her when she said he couldn't die, that she had seen him die- Tosh had known since 1941, Owen had gotten some guess, and Ianto wouldn't say, but he looked distinctly unsurprised. Jack's big secret indeed.

Tosh threw herself into work. Completed projects that had been on the back burner for months in those few days, as if she could make a deal with the powers that be: if she ignored the world for long enough, she could ignore the grief as well.

When she first saw that he was dead, saw is pale face and closed eyes, she went white as a ghost, stayed completely silent and couldn't move at all, apart from the tears trickling down her face. A gentle hand against the small of her back propelled her forward, but when she looked over to Ianto, his face was stony and closed off.

Owen, of course, was angry. He yelled and threw things and got into a fist fight, but underneath it, he was just feeling guilty. He had started their uprising, he had shot Jack. It was his fault. Much like Ianto, though, he showed no sign of emotion at seeing Jack's corpse. It had to do with being male, or something like that, but he could just shutter off his face from his head and heart and pretend he wasn't about to have a complete breakdown.

Ianto did nothing. Ianto helped the others, Ianto served coffee, Ianto kept Gwen fed while she sat her vigil, stroking Jack's face or hand surreptitiously as he left.

It was towards the end of the third day when Tosh realized he wasn't just hiding in the archives, because his eyes were red around the rims when he resurfaced, and Jack's office had been tidied, and his coat taken somewhere (She didn't know, she didn't know about the way it still smelled of him, how every time he even saw it, tears pricked in Ianto's eyes and that he'd had to put it in Jack's room just to save his own sanity). Ianto's suits were all black right now, no charcoal grey or pinstripes- he was in mourning. Mourning in his own quiet, private way, in a way that was inaccessible to the rest of the world.

The next morning, she set herself the goal of drawing him into conversation, asking him what he made of this or that piece of alien tech (not purely to cheer him up, she owned, his insight and knowledge from the archives was extensive), and had just gotten him to speak in a tone of voice that was both audible to human beings and not meant to frighten everyone off, and was steeling herself to ask why it was he couldn't talk about missing Jack to her, at least, when she heard noise from around the water tower, saw Jack leaning on Gwen, who was smiling past her tears, and then she was up like a shot, racing around the hub to throw her arms round him. He was cooler to the touch than he usually was, but he'd been dead for four days. He still looked like crap, too, but…well, see above.

Ianto had come right after her, and it would have been selfish to keep him for longer. She let him go, and turned just in time to see.

Ianto's mouth was a bit open, surprise, shock, anything, and he was more hesitant than she'd been. Ianto was one of those people who'd been played so badly by life he couldn't trust without reason anymore, and who knew if Jack wasn't just a daydream of his. He stretched out a hand, hesitantly- _is that really you? Are you here? What am I supposed to do now?- _and was pulled into a strong hug, arms wrapping instinctively around each other, like they'd done this a million times. And who knew, maybe they had, because next thing Jack was pulling back, only to draw him in again for a kiss, soft and sweet, saying so many things (_I forgive you, I missed you, don't know what I'd have done without you_), before Jack went over to the last of his ducklings, the one most in need of forgiving.

There were tears running down Ianto's cheeks, but a smile, tremulous and radiant, was coming slowly across his face, nothing she'd ever seen from him before.

Of course they were lovers.


End file.
